Tangled in Fate
by Jack The Bard
Summary: The story of "Tangled" in a more dark and sinister world. Note that I do not own any of the characters or storylines, as this is for entertainment's sake. Please R&R.
1. Chapter 1

**It has been a while since my last upload, yet this seems the best place this story that came to me in a dream.**

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><p>Chapter 1<p>

"Do you have the price?" the mercenary asked, resting a hand on the pommel of his sword.

"Yes, yes," the man in dark replied. His cloak seemed to bend the light around him, twisting it and turning it so that, even in the brightest sunlight, he seemed little more than a shadow, "Your services have been of great value to the Master of Shadows many times over, Ryder, and I hope you will not disappoint this time."

He tossed a purse heavy with gold coins out, one which the mercenary deftly caught and tucked away into a hidden pocket, "I will get the job done. Just tell me where to find your man."

"Not man," the shadowy man replied, "Woman. Years ago, one of the Master's witches went rogue, kidnapping the King's Daughter for her own ends. We finally found where she is. So, now, we're hiring you to take care of her."

"So you want me to find the daughter, and kill the witch."

"Just find the daughter. Killing the witch is not mandatory."

"Understood. Any ideas as to where she is?"

"Last I saw, she was to the east," Ryder's client replied, "In a very tall tower. Just keep in mind that the witch is rather powerful, and-"

Ryder cut him off, "I've fought their like before. Just let me work."

The barest shift of his hood revealed a nod, "And remember, you will receive one hundred times that amount once you bring her to the Hold of Shades. Two hundred if you bring the witch's head."

Ryder cringed, torn between his love for gold and his hatred of fighting witches. "Just hold to your end of the bargain," the mercenary said, "I'll bring the king's daughter and the witch's head."

The mercenary turned to leave, the grip on his sword hilt tightening in case he needed to use it, and he felt his client's presence disappear, seeming to melt away like snow in the spring.

They always unnerved him, the emissaries of the Master of Shadows, but they paid well, and this job would most likely get him that much closer to his dream.

Flynn Ryder sighed, taking a hand off his sword and stretching his back, shouldering the satchel he carried his supplies in and beginning to march. East, he thought. East into the land where he was wanted for doing his job, and East to collect his greatest pay day.

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><p>Rapunzel sat in her high tower, combing the knots out of the ends of her hair. Mother liked it when it was straight, and one was not wise to disappoint Mother.<p>

"I just don't get why I have to keep it so damn tidy!" she said to nobody in particular, letting the ends of her hundred-foot long hair drop to the ground with a mild "thud".

Her pet lizard, Pascal, skittered across the floor and climbed up onto the bed with her, crawling up the back of her gray woolen dress to rest on her shoulders with a sigh and a flicker of his tongue. At least she thought Pascal was male.

She reached up to stroke his head, and he began to thrum like a loom at high speed, a subsonic purr that was reminiscent of a cat… or at least they said that cats purred in the books. Mother sometimes left, as often as twice a moon in order to bring Rapunzel something for creativity. Paints or books, or sometimes little wooden pens filled with colored clay that she could use to make bright pictures. Those were her favorites, yet Mother had not brought any of those back recently.

Looking out the tower window over the grotto where she lived, she sighed longingly. Almost twenty years, now. Almost a fully-grown woman and she could not recall any time outside the tower. Yes, it was nice, peaceful, calm, but she didn't like being so alone, save for when Mother was here, and whenever Pascal felt like cuddling… but Mother wasn't always here, and Pascal didn't talk.

Letting out another sigh and walking away from the window, she grabbed a handful of her hair and flicked a wrist, the lock flying out to strike the shutters of the window and snap them shut. Years of being alone with increasingly long hair would do that for you… teach you fun little tricks like jumping rope, whipping it to sometimes painful effect… or at least that's how it felt when it backfired.

"Rapunzel, let down your hair!" a voice called from the base of the tower. Mother!

Rapunzel's face lit up and she flicked her hair out the window, letting the weight of it carry the ends through the hook just outside the tower to float down in a golden curtain. Soon, she felt two gentle tugs on the end of her hair, and began pulling it back up, arm length by arm length.

Mother did this often enough that it kept Rapunzel's arms strong, though they were slender. In no time at all, the curly black hair that topped Mother's head poked up just outside the window. One last pull, and Mother grabbed the edge of the window and jumped inside, settling down on the floor with a pack on her back and a basket in one arm. "Rapunzel, my dear! Come and give your old mother a hug."

Grinning widely, the young lady obliged, running across the wooden floor to leap into the older woman's arms. Though she was Rapunzel's mother, she appeared no older than thirty, though that was because Rapunzel took great care in keeping her young. "How are you, my dear?" Mother asked, the same question as always, but one that made Rapunzel happy.

"I've been keeping just fine, Mother. I've been lonely, though."

"Well, now I'm back, and we can finally have a nice dinner together. Since it's so close to your birthday, I figure that I'll make your favorite hazelnut soup."

Rapunzel clapped her hands in joy, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. Mother's hazelnut soup was the best, just the right amount of sweet and salty that could make you feel like you were snuggled up in the warmest fur blanket.

Mother began walking to the wood fire stove, taking a passing kettle so she could put it on to heat up some water for tea, "So, Rapunzel, did you draw anything new?"

She always asked about Rapunzel's drawings, paintings, and those rare occasions when she wrote, yet these drawings she'd been making recently had troubled Mother.

"I have, Mother," she said, and walked back to her room to come out with a small stack of parchments, "I keep on seeing this man in my dreams, and I can't help but draw him."

Mother and Rapunzel sat down at the table together, and the young woman slid the papers across the table so Mother could see them, "I'm sorry if they upset you, but it's what I've been feeling like drawing recently."

Mother nodded thoughtfully. She couldn't stay angry at Rapunzel long, on those rare occasions when she did get furious, and began looking over the arrayed drawings.

They were all variations of the same man, tall, handsome, like a hero in the stories. He had wavy brown hair and a pointy goatish beard that he always kept neatly trimmed. He always seemed to be wearing a combination of trousers, shirt, vest and coat, the coat so long that it almost touched his heels, and a sword at his side.

Rapunzel had read about swords in the books, but this one seemed strange, a gently curving blade with a straight crossguard. He had drawn it in her dream once, and revealed it to have a sun on one side of the blade and a crescent moon on the other, glimmering and gleaming as if by magic. One of the drawings was a close-up of the sword itself, and the side with the sun. He intrigued her, there was no doubt about that, since he always showed up when she slept and always seemed sad, as if he was looking for something that was just out of reach.

Mother finished looking over the assorted drawings and pushed them back to Rapunzel, hiding her distress very well, though her daughter could still tell when she was distressed. "Do you know why you dream of him, Rapunzel?" she said, rising so she could slice the nuts for the soup.

"No, Mother, I don't. It's just one of those people that keep on showing up in my dreams, like the man and woman with the crown and those frightening twins, one with the hairy cheeks, the other with the eyepatch."

Mother began slicing away at the hazelnuts, her hands shaking slightly, enough so that the knife blade slipped, causing her to cut a finger. "Ow!" she said, sticking the wounded extremity in her mouth to suck on it.

Rapunzel went over, "I'm sorry. It's my fault you're upset," she said, taking Mother's wounded hand and wrapping the finger with a lock of hair. As she had several times before, Rapunzel began to sing softly.

"Flower, gleam and glow,

Let your powers shine,

Make the clock reverse,

Bring back what once was mine.

Heal what has been hurt,

Change the fates' design,

Save what has been lost,

Bring back what once was mine…"

As she sang, her hair began to glow, the full length filling the tower with a golden light. When she removed the lock from around Mother's finger, the cut was healed, and Mother smiled.

"Thank you, Rapunzel. Now, would you like to help mummy cook?"

As her mother smiled at her, Rapunzel smiled back, removing a few spices from one of the cabinets.

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><p><strong>Yes, this is similar to the original story, but it takes place in a darker, more sinister world.<strong> **Hope you enjoyed it, and please review. Anything I can do to make the next few chapters better.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Two in as many days... I hope I can keep this up.**

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><p>Chapter 2<p>

As Rapunzel went to sleep, the extra kick in the hazelnut soup putting her out like a light just after dinner, Mother took the hidden passageway through the tower down to earth again.

"Flynn Ryder?" she said to herself, "Why would Rapunzel be dreaming of Flynn Ryder? The Stabbington brothers, I can understand, as well as the king and queen, but why a wanted man neither of us have met before?"

She shook her head and went to a cave that was cleverly covered by moss, pushing a patch aside so she could leave. A nice, half-hour walk away revealed an inn through the trees, one that she only approached only after putting the hood of her cloak up.

A swaying sign in front of the inn showed a faded painting of a mule on its hind legs, apparently dancing. Pushing open the door with a creak, she entered.

Mother found the men she was looking for immediately, the assorted thugs and ruffians in the tavern portion of the building seeming to part around her as she walked. Seating herself with dignity on a wooden chair across from the twin brothers she said "I have need of your services again."

Paul and Ivan Stabbington leaned back in their chairs, each of them a third again as tall as the diminutive woman, and at least three times as heavy. She had seen them slaughter armed guards with their bare hands on more than one occasion, and giving them a weapon only made things uglier for those on the receiving end. Paul scratched at his eyepatch, the missing orb itching him on a regular basis, "What do you need?"

She passed one of Rapunzel's drawings of Flynn Ryder across the table and tapped it thrice with a finger, "I need you to gather your men and guard the grotto for a little while. Keep a special eye out for this man. Fifty gold pieces per week that you stay on guard, with another hundred if you kill him."

Ivan gave a low whistle, "Wow, lady. That's a hefty sum, even divided between all of us. What's your beef with him?"

"My 'beef' is my own," Mother responded, taking the parchment back, "You know who he is, correct?"

"Of course we do," Paul said, not daring to speak the name, "He's a mercenary and pretty handy with a sword. There's a one thousand gold piece reward if you take him alive, two thousand if dead."

Mother nodded slowly, "Then keep in mind that you'll get that bounty once you kill him, and if he doesn't come calling, you'll just get paid the fee I said."

The twins looked at one another, then back to Mother, "Sure thing. When do you need us to start?"

She smirked wickedly, her face darkening a little bit, "First light. Make sure that you always have a guard on duty."

Flynn kept walking. It was a state of meditation for him, a time for reflection and thought. Right now, he happened to be thinking about the vault of gold he had stashed away from previous jobs, that stockpile that was quickly approaching five hundred thousand pieces buried beneath the roots of a very special oak tree.

As he thought about the gold, his thoughts ventured to that tree, and the clearing it was near, and he sighed. For fifteen years, his father had taught him how to use a sword, eventually passing on his sword to the young Flynn as he proved himself worthy of it.

Then the Coals came.

Coals were the name Flynn had given them, not knowing their true title, and not really caring. They were men, or at least they might have been once. Now, they were just embers, covered in a thin layer of ash like a coal that had cooked for a little while. When they talked in that tone that seemed to burn your very ears, the ash on their face cracked, and revealed the glowing orange underneath.

Flynn shuddered at the thought. He hated them more than anything else, and had to cut down the last one with his dead father's sword as it came for him. He carried that sword ever since, and it didn't take long for him to note that people generally gave him a wide berth when he carried it. A little investigation revealed that that kind of sword, with the Sun of the King and the Moon of the Master on the flats of the blade, was usually only carried by men regarded by both the Kingdom of Light and the Empire of Shadow as true masters of the sword.

Needless to say, Flynn had proven himself worthy of it several times over, cutting down both man and Coal that thought themselves a worthy foe. As he reminisced on this, he shuddered and loosened his grip on the sword. It was mostly a comfort thing, how he rested his hand on the pommel of the blade, and nobody could tell him to do otherwise.

Looking up, he saw darkness creeping across the sky, the sun slowly setting behind him.

"I suppose it's time for me to bed down for the night," Flynn said, marching along the road, seeing an inn with a dancing mule sign hanging outside the door.

The usually dour swordsman felt a smile work its way onto his face. "Perfect."

Rapunzel sat upright, the hair on the bed a tangled mess around her, the rest of it gently coiled in a little basket as she slept. Reaching over, she lifted up the basket and carried it with her, Pascal scurrying behind, and walked out into the main room of the tower.

Mother was asleep in a large comfy chair. She generally was at this hour, when she was home, and she snored lightly, her curly black hair framing her face. Rapunzel shrugged and went back into her room, recalling the dream she had just woken up from, the man with the strange sword fighting the frightening twins.

"Why would they be fighting, though…" she asked herself, taking a piece of parchment so she could draw the encounter out.

She had been sketching for a good half hour, the features on the man with the strange sword's face clear when she heard something. Poking her head out of the window of her room, she saw a man with a lantern, and even from a distance, she could tell that it was one of the frightening twins.

As he turned to look almost directly at her, she ducked behind the wall, out of view, seeing the black patch over one of his eyes. Breathing heavily, she looked again, but he was gone.

Panicking slightly, she picked up the basket, running as quickly as she could to Mother, shaking her awake.

"Mother! Mother!" she called, shaking one of the older woman's shoulders, "Wake up! I just saw one of the frightening men from my dreams!"

It took Mother a moment to stir awake, yawning slightly before sitting up and asking "What do you mean, Rapunzel?"

"He was just outside, he was holding a lantern!"

"Dear, it was just a dream. Unless he's still there now?"

"Um… no," Rapunzel said, "He disappeared, but he was there, I swear!"

Mother chuckled tiredly and kissed Rapunzel on the forehead, "It's fine, dear. You were just dreaming. However, if you are so afraid, I could go and check for you."

Rapunzel's eyes widened. If the frightening men were really there, then Mother wouldn't stand a chance. "No! You don't have to. It was probably just a silly dream after all…"

Mother smiled again and patted Rapunzel on the cheek, "It's fine dear. Now, I'm going to be leaving again tomorrow. Your birthday is coming up, and I want to get you a nice gift. How do you like those nice clay pens? The ones with the colors?"

Rapunzel grinned once again and embraced the older woman, "That would be great, mother. Thank you."

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><p><strong>Once again, thank you for reading, and please review. ^_^<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Flynn woke up from a solid night's rest in a too-lumpy bed that he believed was infested with some kind of bugs. It was not the first time he had slept in such conditions, but it was certainly better than sleeping on tree roots in the woods, where rough-shod characters could slit your throat in the night.

He stretched, his scar-crossed chest rippling with smooth muscle as he did so before donning his shirt and vest again, strapping his belt on, and slipping his long coat over the whole outfit. Cracking his neck and knuckles, he went downstairs for a bite to eat.

As was to be expected, the food was less than extravagant, but Flynn didn't complain, keeping his head low so nobody noticed him. The eggs were greasy, the bacon greasier, and the ale had a thin film of… something on the surface. It filled him up, though, and as he chewed silently, he listened.

It was at places like this that he could pick up hints, tips, and clues as to where his quarry was, and it wasn't long before he found something.

"So how long do we have to guard the lady?" one ruffian asked another.

"As long as the bosses say," his partner replied, "Besides the pay is good. The twins are splitting fifty amongst the lot of us each week."

"You've got a point there. In fact, just keeping guard may not be that bad." They both shared a chuckle at that, then the first continued, "So we need to just keep an eye out for that one guy?"

"Mhm," the second thug replied, "The bosses say that it's another hundred if we kill him, plus the bounty on his head."

The first gave a low whistle, "I guess that the lady is really paranoid about this Flynn Ryder character.

At the mention of his name, Flynn's ears pricked up and he began listening more intently.

"Well, I would be too," the second responded, "He's one of the finest swordsmen in the kingdoms."

The first simply gave a grunt before downing the last of his ale and standing up, "Well, we have to go. We don't want to keep the brothers waiting."

With that, they left, and Flynn contained a sinister smile. Paying for his breakfast, he left, following the two thugs at a distance.

Gothel kissed Rapunzel on the forehead, a basket on her arm, saying a polite goodbye before she lowered herself down Rapunzel's long golden locks and leaving the grotto.

In order to maintain the illusion that she was still at the tower, she had to leave unseen. Mother Gothel cloaked herself in a little spell she had learned as a child, one that wasn't necessarily invisibility, but would ensure that people didn't notice her passing.

Leaving the grotto, she saw two or three of the Stabbington Brothers' thugs keeping watch, walking by unnoticed, she smiled wickedly to herself, the leaves not even deigning to crack under her feet. Once she was sure that she was out of sight and sound of the brothers, she let out a sigh and released the magic that cloaked her, the dissipation of the spell lifting a great weight from her shoulders.

So she walked on, leaving to bring her daughter some of those colored pens.

Flynn was silent as a mouse, yet watched like a hawk and listened like a fox. The two thugs were loud in comparison to most of Flynn's previous prey, yet still moved quietly enough to remain unnoticed by most that would be listening.

"Most" being the operative word there.

Making a point to avoid the patches of fallen leaves and dry, brittle twigs, Flynn Ryder moved like a shadow in the morning until the two thugs stopped in a stand of trees, two tall individuals stepping out to greet them.

Flynn was too far out to hear them, yet he could identify the men as Paul and Ivan Stabbington, mercenaries renowned for brutal efficiency…. Or just plain brutality. Depended on how you looked at it.

Further investigation revealed that the four thugs were not alone. Just at first glance, Flynn found where five more would be hiding and swore under his breath. If he could find five with but a glance, then there were more surely out of his view.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped out from behind the tree, revealing himself to the Stabbington Brothers.

One of them, the one with only one eye, grinned wickedly and said, "Well, Flynn Ryder, looks like we didn't have to wait long for you. One day, we get the job, the next day, you show up."

Flynn rested a hand on the pommel of his sword. "I'm not here to kill you. Just let me pass and you will live."

The other brother, the one with the thick sideburns, laughed, "Kill him. Remember what Gothel said about the price on his head."

As he finished the first sentence, eight men revealed themselves.

"Twelve of you," Flynn said, "I was hoping I wouldn't have to shed too much blood this job, but it seems my hand will be forced." He drew his sword in one smooth motion, the blade signing as it slipped out of the leather sheath, the metal shining in the light. Flynn held it ready as the twelve men charged him.

Some of them were smart, including the twins, who circled around to flank him, but the rest of them paid for their stupidity with their lives. One thug brought his hammer about in a skull-crushing blow, hoping to end Flynn right there.

A flicker of metal, and Flynn parted his throat, allowing a crimson flood to come forth. Spinning, the swordsman met the next strike, dodging a spiked club as he did so. They began closing in, and Flynn performed the Iron Dance more intently.

His feet moved in the dance, allowing his body to flow through the forms his father taught him. Wind Rushes over the Plain disemboweled two men, and Swan on the Riverbank tripped another, allowing for a fourth kill.

Soon, Flynn Ryder was not even conscious of his movements, so intent was he on the dance, not even the blood of his fallen foes able to touch him. Soon, there were only two left: the Stabbington Brothers.

Ivan and Paul Stabbington looked across the blood-soaked forest at each other, the deadly mercenary between them before coming in at the same time. Flynn met their swords with his own, his gently curving blade turning aside one strike after another before he dodged out of the way, cracking the pommel of his sword over the base of Ivan's head, knocking him out.

Ivan crumpled like a sack of grain, leaving only Paul. The one-eyed man snarled and brought his heavy, cleaver-like sword in a brutal strike, which Flynn easily avoided, stepping into its wake to drive his blade into Paul's foot and cracking him across the jaw, the strike putting the other Stabbington Brother down.

As the two large men crumpled, Flynn sighed and wiped his blade clean on the jerkin of some poor groaning thug and walked on to hopefully find the tower.


End file.
